Emmy stared at herself in the full-length mirror. She looked the same as every other morning – skinny as a twig with bright orange hair but she felt different somehow. Like something had switched on inside her, an unknown hunger that she didn't know how to turn off. She couldn't remember most nights from the past couple of weeks; it was like someone had thrown a veil over her memories so she could only remember glimpses. One night in particular stood out a bit more than the others though and she could remember moments like being in the woods, blood on her hands and no idea how it got there, the school, and being taken home in a noisy car.
"Are you alright?" Emmy's eyes slipped from her own reflection to her father's. He was standing in the doorway to her room, leaned against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. His thick-rimmed reading glasses hung in a chain around his neck over the big, comfortable jumper that Emmy's grandmother knitted for him, the one with the big G for Grant on his stomach, the one he only wore when he worked from home because he wasn't going to let his pupils mock him for it. It made her smile because he wore it when he read the Harry Potter books to his daughter growing up – the jumper was exactly like the ones Molly Weasley knitted for her family. Emmy nodded.
"I know it's been difficult for you," he said as she turned to face him. "But you can talk to me about anything, darling." Her father had aged over the past couple of years but since they left Scotland, it was easier to see. His hair used to be as bright orange as his daughter's but now it was mostly grey with only hints of the redhead he'd once been. The wrinkles around his eyes that had only appeared when he smiled were now permanent, and he needed the glasses more often than he cared to admit. He finally looked like the professor, Emmy knew him to be.
"Thanks, Dad," she said and kissed his cheek. "Do you have time to drive me to school or are the essays in a hurry to be marked?" He chuckled, nodded, and put his arm around his daughter. Together they walked to the car, and Grant Walsh took his time despite six weeks practice - he still wasn't comfortable driving on the opposite side of the road, and his daughter made sure not to mention his knuckles turning white as he grasped the steering wheel harder than necessary.
"Have you made any friends?" The question shouldn't have come as a surprise since she hadn't mentioned anyone at all over dinner but her father's directness caught her off guard. She tossed a sideways glance at him.
"I'm not good at making friends," Emmy mumbled. She dug her fingernail into her palm hard enough to leave an imprint – it was a bad habit that she'd tried to shed for years but to no avail.
"What do you mean you're bad at making friends? You had plenty in Scotland." Her father looked from one side to the other to check he was good to go without rambling into another driver coming from either left or right – Emmy had to tell him that he'd turned the blinker on to show right instead of left. At last, her dad swung out onto the road in a swift motion.
"I've been busy catching up on years worth of schoolwork. They don't have the same curriculum or structure that we do in Scotland – you should know that being a professor." The truth of it was that she had spent her last month in Scotland reading up on the curriculum for Beacon Hills High so that she would be more or less caught up once she started her new life in America, and so far she seemed to be doing fine except in maths but that had always been an issue.
At last her father turned the car into the school parking lot but several horns sounded as he lost his head and accidentally drove on the side of the road he was used to. He mumbled apologies that no other driver could hear as he curved his shoulders, and drove the car towards the five-minute parking spots for parents who were dropping or picking up their children. When Grant Walsh finally turned off the car, Emmy sucked in a ragged breath of relief that they did not die this time either – her father's driving had never made her feel particularly safe but it had come to an entirely new level of terrifying since they had moved halfway across the planet. Her dad's grip on the steering wheel loosened until he let go entirely, and placed them in his lap where Emmy noticed them tremor slightly but she did not have it in her to point it out to him.
"I'm proud of you, leannain," he said after a few seconds of silence. "Besides your initial apprehension, you've proven to be more mature than I ever thought you would be." The corners of Emmy's mouth turned upward as she reached out and put her slim hand on top of her father's.
"Well, someone had to be the adult in a house filled with eccentric professors," she joked, and couldn't help but laugh at Grant Walsh's attempt to send her an angry glare but there was a hint of a smile around his eyes, and soon he was laughing with her. Emmy watched students pile into the building to get to their respective classes, she didn't mean to but she let out the heavy sigh that had been stuck in her throat since last night.
"Forget school today," her father said making her attention snap back to him. "Try to make some friends – nothing would make me happier than for you not to be lonely." Emmy nodded.
"There's a lacrosse game tonight," she remembered. "I'll go." Her father nodded, obviously pleased with his daughter's decision. She couldn't bear the thought of telling him that she had turned down a party invitation a few days earlier – she figured going to the game would make up for it even though he didn't know.
"Tha gaol agam ort," he said and put his arms around his daughter.
"I love you too," Emmy muttered, and hugged him back. She stepped out of the car and watched her father drive away. As the car disappeared out of the school parking lot, she remembered the promise she had just made to him – that she would forget school and try to make a friend which, considering her strange accent and bright orange hair that people undoubtedly noticed, should be easier said than done. The opposite was true. If the move to America had taught her anything, it was that her communication skills with people she hadn't known all her life were severely compromised and to be honest, practically non-existent. Nonetheless, she turned around on her heel, determined to make her father proud and make a friend. Just one, and have a conversation with that person so she could mention their name over supper tonight.
Less than a minute after she'd opened her locker someone said her name on the other side of the open door but they said Emmy instead of Emmeline. Emmy peeked her head around her locker door and saw a face that looked somewhat familiar though she couldn't pinpoint it. The girl had long dark hair, dark eyes, arms lined with muscles, and circles under her eyes that had barely been covered by concealer despite the fact that the girl had definitely tried.
"Can I help you?" The girl crossed her arms over her chest.
"I figured you wouldn't remember considering you haven't talked to me since you ambushed me in the locker room a couple of weeks ago. To be fair, you were pretty out of it so I don't blame you, but I lent you a hoodie and I would like it back." Emmy blinked her eyes rapidly a couple of times as if the girl would be abducted by a leprechaun while they were closed for a fraction of a second – then she cursed herself for thinking of a myth that was clearly Irish not Scottish. But she did remember the strange grey hoodie she'd woken up in a couple of weeks ago, it now hung over her desk chair as a reminder that someone must've been kind to her while she was blacked out.
"Wait," Emmy began, brows laced together. "I ambushed you?" The girl nodded.
"You didn't attack me," she clarified. "But consider yourself lucky I didn't attack you which I could and would have done if you hadn't asked me to help you." According to her father, Emmy was a human lie detector because she was somehow always able to tell if people were being truthful or not, and despite how crazy it all sounded, the girl in front of her was telling the truth. There wasn't even a hint of a lie and Emmy couldn't tell if that fascinated her or scared her half to death. Either way, she seemed to have answers about her foggy memories, and Emmy needed to know more and potentially find out what caused her blackouts.
"What did I need your help with?" The somewhat cocky half-smile that had been glued to the girl's face since she started talking to her faded fast. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she glanced over her shoulder before turning her head back to Emmy. Her arms were still crossed across her chest, and she was tapping a finger on her elbow.
"You really don't remember, do you?" Emmy shook her head.
"Not really," she muttered. She debated whether or not she should tell the girl about her persistent blackouts, about the flashes she did remember, and how much the uncertainty of her whereabouts and doings terrified her. Emmy had no idea what was happening to her.
"You were covered in blood, Emmy," said the girl. Emmy's breath caught in her throat, and her breathing became more ragged. "Around your mouth, your hands, your t-shirt, and I think your hair, too. We have no idea what happened to you but there were no cuts or bruises on you so the blood must've belonged to someone else." Emmy's hand was in front of her mouth in shock to keep her from screaming. Tears were threatening to burst over the edges of her eyes, and she could barely breathe. She was breaking down in the middle of the school hallway, and there was nothing she would rather do than get out of there, to get out of everybody's sight so no one would judge her. The girl seemed to read her mind because she led Emmy down the hallway, and into the boys' locker room where two familiar faces and an unfamiliar one looked at her. There were two boys, both with dark hair and eyes, and a girl with beautiful red hair. Not like Emmy's, which was supposedly red but had always looked more orange than anything else.
"You talked to her for five minutes and the poor girl's already in tears? Well done, June." The boy with the moles said. June, the girl who had talked to Emmy, glared at him.
"Shut it, Stilinski," she hissed. It occurred to Emmy that June's name didn't fit her. The name made her think of gentle summer winds, purple heather, open hills, and the sun beating down on the moors making them seem endless but June's voice was harsh, and cold like the desperate and rainy winters she knew from Scotland.
"Do you know anything about this?" Asked the boy whom June has referred to as Stilinski and handed Emmy a piece of paper with a list of names with numbers next to them on it. At the bottom of the list, she read Emmeline Walsh 22 and gasped – she had no idea what it meant but from the looks on everybody's faces, it wasn't good.
"I don't know anything," Emmy said after a couple of seconds, and handed the list back. "What do the numbers mean?" The four people in front of her all hesitated, undoubtedly deciding whether or not she could handle the truth, and if she was being completely honest with herself, she wasn't sure she could. The other boy, the one with the crooked jawline spoke somewhat slowly, and with a slight hint of caution in his voice as if trying not to scare her.
"It's a dead pool," he said. "A list of supernatural creatures and how much money someone will be paid to take that person out." Emmy's head was spinning from too many words and concepts that she couldn't possibly begin to comprehend. Her father was a history professor, who had chosen to specialize in the history of the supernatural but never once had he hinted that it might be real, and now these vaguely familiar strangers were telling her that the supernatural was real. There was no question any more: Emmy was losing her mind.
"This is only a third of the list," said the redhead, speaking for the first time. "But so far, you're the second most valuable target on the list next to Scott. I'm number three," She finished. Emmy's heart raced, black spots appeared before her eyes, and when asked if she was okay, their voices seemed a million miles away as her body rapidly weakened under her, and her breathing grew fast and ragged.
"Get her on the floor," someone yelled but the voice barely reached her. It seemed like someone had put a fist around her heart and was slowly killing her. It was as if someone had tied her lungs into knots, making it impossible to breathe as the pieces slowly started to fit together in her mind. The blood on her hands, the inexplicable blackouts, her name on a list of supernaturals, assassins coming to get her so they could earn 22 million dollars, so much blood, chasing someone through the woods. The other kids were talking but Emmy could only feel June's hand in hers so she tried to focus on that, tried to use the girl with the unfitting name's touch to jolt back into real time and out of the panic attack that was currently crippling every fiber of her being. When she finally came back to it, it felt like hours had passed but it had only been a couple of minutes. Lydia Martin, whose name Emmy knew because she'd mentioned being the third most valuable person on the list, handed her a plastic cup with water for her drink. Emmy concentrated on her breathing, and took a couple of long sips from the water. She closed her eyes, and opened them again to look up at Scott who was definitely the leader of the group, she breathed in as much air as she could to prepare herself for the words that would come out of her mouth next.
"I think I killed someone."
A/N: This might be one of my favorite chapters I've ever written to any story so I would very much appreciate reviews and you guys letting me know what you think of the story and my OCs. I tried to write from Emmy's POV and I quite liked it - something I will definitely explore in the future. Remember you can follow me and talk to me on tumblr (stydiaokaybye) about this story or the people in it. Thanks so much, darlings.